Sierra Fiat of Duarte opens its doors

DUARTE - There's a new auto dealer in town and it's name is Sierra Fiat of Duarte.

The dealership has moved into a 2.1-acre site at 1125 Central Ave. The business sold its first car on March 10 and a grand opening celebration was held Thursday.

"We had a good turnout for the ribbon cutting - about 65 to 75 people," said David Di Giuseppe, the dealership's general manager.

Di Giuseppe, a 30-year career veteran with Sierra Autocars, said the new business in Duarte is stocked with all three models of the Fiat 500 series - the Pop, Sport, and Lounge. The cars come in a variety of colors and feature packages.

Prices range from $16,000 for the basic Pop to $23,000 for the Lounge. Di Giuseppe said he expects to receive his first shipment of Fiat's latest addition to the 500 series, the Abarth, within two to four weeks. The Italian designed Fiat 500s have a multi-international pedigree with an award-winning engine built in the United States, transmission built in Japan, and manufactured in Mexico.

Di Giuseppe said his dealership's prime demographic is consumers age 25 to 35. But there are lots of exceptions.

"I can see older people age 55 to 75 purchasing these cars," he said. "On Sunday we sold a new sports car to someone who said his Infiniti SUV was costing him too much in gas. He was commuting from Duarte to Los Angeles."

The manual version of the Pop get 39 miles per gallon on the highway.

"I think all small, high-mileage vehicles sell better when gas is so expensive," Di Giuseppe said. "It's just the right time."

On Friday, the average price for a gallon of regular, unleaded gasoline in the Los Angeles-Long Beach region was $4.39 per gallon. That was up from $4.19 a month ago and $3.98 a year ago, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report.

The 2.1-acre lot will undergo a $750,000 renovation with upgraded freeway-visible signs over the next 18 months.

"We already completed the first phase with a complete remodel of the inside," Di Giuseppe said.

Duarte City Manager Darrell George said the new Fiat dealership is good news for the city.

"It's a great deal for us," he said. "Anytime you can get a new auto dealership in your city to fill a slot that has been vacant for over two years, it's good."

The site was last occupied by a Mitsubishi dealership, George said, but that business left abruptly at the height of the recession.

"They literally left in the middle of the night," he said. "They just decided to close up shop. We've had a lot of looky-loos since then, but they were things that were really not very positive for the city."

When Duarte learned that Fiat was looking to establish a new location in the San Gabriel Valley, George said the city began speaking with them. He anticipates the dealership will generate anywhere from $10 million to $12 million a year in sales, 1 percent of which the city would keep in sales tax revenue.